Peaced out from the office to avoid driving in heavy sleet traffic, so I’m now safely ensconced at home, working away. Leaving the tie on until the work day is over, though. Be safe out there, folks!

Well, this was delicious. Thanks for dinner, @iateoklahoma!

NOVA: The Invisible UniverseThis episode of NOVA made me actually weep. The Hubble Space Telescope is one of the most amazing thing humanity has ever done, and Nancy Roman's face should be on money. Watch this.

Wayward Spawn of a Dead Star?It didn't turn out that the first interstellar asteroid detected traveling through our solar system was an alien spacecraft, but 'Oumuamua still is revealing its secrets even as it zooms back out into the galaxy, never to be seen again.

Ring In 2019 in the Kuiper BeltThis NASA preview of the next New Horizons flyby—of the Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69—has me excited to see humanity once again push the boundaries of exploration.

I went looking for this photo recently, as it fits in with something we're doing in the magazine, and I happened to show it to my parents at dinner tonight. It turns out, my Grandma Pearl had only recently been remembering this photograph, saying it was one of her favorite shots of me. The back of our property line on the plains, out in the country, was lined with a dozen or more peach trees. They oozed sap and dropped worm-eaten fruit, but when you got a good one, man, there was nothing like it. I feel some measure of pity for those who've never spent any time living in the country and who are baffled by people who'd willingly choose a rural life. Mine was magic.